2. Time For This Discussion To Bloom
ESPN TrueHoop
The game was billed as a battle between two MVP candidates: Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls and Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks.
Insert epic music here.
Bah. I hate that kind of talk. Unless I accidentally skipped a chapter of NBA history, the MVP has never been awarded in January. It's a meaningless discussion. It's also irresistible.
The game was one of those ugly defensive battles that evoked unpleasant memories of those Heat-Knicks scrums from the late 1990s. Both teams finished with a field goal percentage in the mid-30s. Nowitzki managed 19 points on 6-for-16 shooting and grabbed only two rebounds in 38 minutes. Rose scored a game-high 26 points, but it took him 28 shots to get there. He went 5-for-20 in the second half.
I've watched every game Rose has ever played. I've seen him have bad shooting games, but this was different. The Dallas D covered him like a blanket made out of barbed wire. I can't remember a team playing better defense against Rose.
Of course, the Mavs could afford to throw waves of defenders in his path. Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah were out. A weary-looking Luol Deng -- as of Thursday, he's logged 40 minutes or more in 11 of the past 16 games -- went 3-for-13. At times, it felt like one-on-five out there.
Of the nine Bulls players who logged PT, Rose was the only one to score in double figures. And get this: He had double figures (10) in the fourth quarter. His brightest moment came with 55 seconds left in the fourth. With the Bulls up a point, Rose nearly lost the ball in the paint before backing it out, throwing a few one-on-one moves at Jason Kidd, and then beating the shot clock with a 19-footer that gave Chicago an 80-77 lead.
Like I said, MVP discussion in January is meaningless. But watching Rose and the Bulls gut out victory after victory with Boozer and/or Noah on the shelf ...
... makes talking about Rose winning the MVP feel kind of right.
3. Daily Dime Live
Zach Harper, TrueHoop Network bloggers and fans gave their pre-, in- and post-game opinions in Thursday's Daily Dime Live.
4. Will Miller Become Fourth Heatle?
ESPN.com
MIAMI -- It was the freakiest of freak injuries.
On Oct. 20, just six days before the Miami Heat's opener at the Boston Celtics, Mike Miller was wrestling with LeBron James down on the block. The Heat are renowned for the intensity of their practices. Throw in the responsibility of guarding James, and Miller had his hands full -- literally, as it turned out.
"I was just guarding LeBron in the post," Miller recounted. "He spun to make a move. I kind of got my thumb caught in his jersey and it just popped. It came all the way back and I felt it and I knew it was gone. It was bad. I can usually play through stuff, but I knew it was going to be a problem. I just walked off."
Miller suffered serious ligament damage to his right thumb. The Heat, who feature an aging roster of role players apart from their three superstars, were suddenly without their fourth-best player. Miller was fitted for a brace and began shooting again just after Thanksgiving. He tried to remain in game condition, fully aware that, for professional athletes, no workout regimen can simulate the demands of live game action.
5. Extreme Behavior
ESPN.com
THURSDAY'S BEST
D.J. Augustin, Bobcats: Posted one of the great halfs of the season, sinking 10-of-11 shots en route to 25 points, finishing with a career-high 31 points overall in the Cats' 100-97 win over the Sixers.
THURSDAY'S WORST
Mavericks' bench marksmanship: In a game most notable for defensive play, four bench Mavs combined to shoot 8-for-28 (28.6 percent) in the loss.
TWEET OF THE NIGHT
Having a superbowl party sat night before gm. Usher playing. Be there
Mark Cuban
mcuban
-- Mavs owner Mark Cuban, throwing open the doors! You heard the man, be there or be square. Oh, wait, it's invite only. But all is not lost -- a previous tweet says you can still win an invite.
QUOTE OF THE NIGHT
"It's just a dirty little creek."
-- TNT analyst Charles Barkley, taking aim at San Antonio's fame "Riverwalk."
7. Decade's Best Coach
ESPN The Magazine
Question: Who has been the best coach of the past decade?
BUCHER: Two coaches have stood above the rest of the NBA during the past decade: The Lakers' Phil Jackson and the Spurs' Gregg Popovich. There are coaches who have been impressive in various ways -- the Jazz's Jerry Sloan and the Celtics' Doc Rivers immediately come to mind -- but they are, at best, fighting for a distant third. The question is, who deserves to be considered the best? I'm going to go with the man they call Pop.
BROUSSARD: Obviously, Pop is a terrific coach, one of the best to do it. But my pick for coach of the past decade or so is Jackson. With five titles and seven NBA Finals appearances since 2000, he's led two separate dynasties in one decade. Not only has Jackson been the best coach of the past 10 to 12 years, he's been the best in NBA history.
RB: That was my initial thought, too. Who argues against all those rings? Jackson's five versus Pop's three since 2000, right? In fact, I'd be willing to concede that Jackson is battling Red Auerbach for best of all time when you include Jackson's Chicago run. But when I look at what he's working with, and where and for whom, this feels like a race in which one runner has a 10-yard head start every time.
The Los Angeles Lakers' winning has never come as a surprise; in fact, when they've lost, it has been an upset. The San Antonio Spurs, on the other hand, have been the favorite very few times because their talent never warranted it. Yet every season, including this one, they win more games and go deeper in the playoffs than their pure talent says they should. If you measure strictly by results, there is no argument here: Jackson wins. But measure results against what they were working with, and Pop clearly has "coached up" his teams more consistently than Jackson has.
8. Bulls On Rise
Dennis Wierzbicki-US PRESSWIRE9. Single Double-Figure
It wasn't pretty, but Derrick Rose led all players with 26 points despite shooting only 9-for-28 from the field in the Chicago Bulls' 82-77 win over the Dallas Mavericks. It was the third time this season that Rose missed as many as 19 field-goal attempts, something no other Bulls player has done even once over the past seven seasons. The only other players to miss 19 or more FGAs in a game this season are Kobe Bryant (four times) and LeBron James (once).
But what made Rose's performance most unusual was the fact that no teammate scored even 10 points. Over the past 10 seasons only two other teams won a game in which just one player scored in double-figures: The Cavaliers, behind a 37-point night by LeBron James three years ago, and the Lakers, with a 62-point performance by Kobe Bryant in December 2005. The Bulls had only one other such victory in team history, behind Michael Jordan's 45 points against the Sonics in 1997.
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